Na ulicy i przy urnie: Studia o zachowaniach politycznych Polaków, 1980–2020 On the streets and at the polls: Studies in the political behavior of Poles, 1980–2020Polska wojna kulturowa The Polish culture war

It is a risky business to write upon two very different authors, two contrasting books, and styles, and with topics linked by what they both see, but from their own perspective, as the land of Poles apart. However, challenges face not only writers but their reviewers as well. A publication on Polish political behavior by Professor Krzysztof Jasiewicz reintroduces one of the most eminent political sociologists in the United States to the Polish reader. A book by Mariusz Stankiewicz presents a journalist as a polemical intellectual in the field of cultural studies.Krzysztof Jasiewicz, the Ames Professor of Sociology at Washington and Lee University, received his M.A. in sociology from the University of Warsaw (1972) and his Ph.D., also in sociology, from the Polish Academy of Sciences (1976). He has taught and/or held fellowships at Warsaw University, Harvard, Oxford, and UCLA, among other institutions. He has published extensively on elections, voting behavior, party systems, and political attitudes in Poland and other Central European states in English, Polish, and French. Jasiewicz is the co-editor of the journal East European Politics and Societies and Cultures. He should not be confused with the Warsaw-based, controversial historian of the same first and last name (no relation).Na ulicy i przy urnie is a volume consisting of fourteen articles written by Jasiewicz in the years 1983–2019. Each piece includes an analysis of surveys and a commentary concerning Polish political behavior and misbehavior. The articles are published in their original Polish version. These are not conventional research papers since they expose the author's personal opinions often expressed in an essayistic tone. However, Jasiewicz is very careful to distinguish comments in them from rigorous scholarship.The volume has four sections related roughly to the four historical decades. The opening article about the Solidarity era was published in 1983 in Poland in cooperation with prominent scholars. The subsequent pieces came out outside of official censorship in Poland, including a survey report "Poles '84" reprinted in many foreign languages. The second chapter deals with the presidential elections of 1991 and parliamentary ones of 1993. The third part follows the elections of 1995 and the E.U. accession referendum. Finally, the last chapter covers the years 2010 until 2019. At the end of each chapter there is a sort of a summary outlining the political behavior of Polish voters which characterizes a subsequent historical period.One of the most surprising pieces of data shown by Jasiewicz comes from the 1983 survey in which more than half of the respondents approved the decision of introducing martial law in Poland and equally blamed the government and Solidarity for causing this decision (p. 73). The same survey reveals that General Wojciech Jaruzelski was trusted more than Lech Wałęsa (p. 74). Perhaps another surprising result of surveys from 2014 to 2019 analyzed by Jasiewicz is that in older generations there were no important differences between men and women. However, the differences have been visible recently in younger generations due mainly to males tending to lean to the right (p. 289).The subsequent articles aim to demonstrate divisions within the Polish population, starting with "we" vs. "them" before 1981 and then in the 1990s with the development of four dimensions of political choices which, in turn, resulted in the emergence of "two nations," that is, two incompatible and mutually exclusive entities. These areas of political war covered the options between nationalism versus occidentalism, authoritarian versus parliamentary democracy, religiosity versus secularism and market protection versus a free market. The last article entitled "Two nations?" is in fact totally dedicated to this process. So far, liberal and traditional Polands coexist with each other in all social groups. The conflicts seem to be violent in the parliament and on television screens, but they fade in everyday life activities. The author concludes his ideas with the question about the possibility or not of religion as the key source of social integration in a modern society.There are two leading conclusions which seem to acquire the significance of axioms. The first one suggests that since the 1995 elections Polish political life has been decided at the polls and not on the streets. The second maintains that the Poles' political behavior beset by deep conflict and division has been motivated by cultural factors, especially religious preferences, and not by economic ones. Neither experts nor politicians should ignore these consequences evidenced scientifically by Jasiewicz.Polska wojna kulturowa is another kettle of fish. Its author, Mariusz Staniszewski, born in 1972 in Wrocław, graduated in political science from the University of Warsaw. He started his journalistic career in his native hometown and then contributed to leading newspapers in Warsaw. He was fired from the staff of Rzeczpospolita after having written a controversial article and then joined the editorial board of Do Rzeczy. It is also worth mentioning that Staniszewski is an expert at the Warsaw Enterprise Institute, a prestigious conservative-leaning think-tank.The publication is an attempt to present differing views on politics, education, religion, tradition, and social behavior occurring in Poland after its accession to the European Union. These splittings are unprecedented historically and they cut through families, friends, and communities; according to Staniszewski, they are essentially value-laden. Staniszewski declares his intention to avoid high emotions and tribal divisions but already in the introduction he says, "It has been soon obvious that the attempt to replace Marxism with the idea of competition/ rivalry leads to the hell of nihilism" (p. 7) and then accuses the founding fathers of the Third Republic of rejecting the Polish national identity and replacing it with a secular and cosmopolitan mindset. Throughout his twelve essays, he accuses the new, liberal-leftist Poland of rejecting the legacy of Polish Romanticism and the Catholic faith, and of forming an alliance with former communists and present neo-Marxists. In rejecting the waves of postmodernism in Poland, Staniszewski accurately notes some of the negative sides of this "invasion." For example, he discusses the onset of cancel culture at Polish universities which become less a center for dialogue and more a representation of sides in the culture war.His critical approach goes beyond the Polish borders. His main assumption is that the underpinnings of the inherited order—values and norms learned in family and communities through religion and culture—would erode under the influence of the liberal state. He brings sharply into focus how traditional institutions of nation, family, and religion are being taken by a self-referential point of view which does not recognize the principle of human nature and common moral framework. This, consequently, leads to relativism and permissiveness, opening the way for the return of totalitarian projects. Staniszewski relies heavily on the writings of Chantal Delsol, Roger Scruton, Ryszard Legutko, Leszek Kołakowski, and the like, while avoiding polemics with his Polish opponents. In fact, Staniszewski does not take into consideration the changes and processes discussed by such scholars as Jasiewicz. His style is polemical and confrontational. Such concepts as a need for compromise, cooperation, and consensus appear neither in his nor, as a matter of fact, in Jasiewicz's deliberations.Especially in a cultural study such as Staniszewski's, some attempt at a dialogue, some intellectual debate with the opponents is expected. Alas! The two books in question are addressed to two separate readers. Jasiewicz's work is hardly understood by someone who has not been an outstanding student in the fields of recent history and social sciences. Staniszewski wishes his book to be read by Polish highbrows, but it is, in fact, written for aspiring and convinced new right-wing readers. Staniszewski offers a kind of journalistic homily; Jasiewicz is an author for the learned few. Both confirm rather than convert. For Poles apart, they do not provide any space to meet.